Nine Inch Nails offers free tracks

One thing that can be attributed to rockers, Nine Inch Nails, is their lack of fear toward innovation. For the release of their new album, Ghosts I-IV, they are offering up to 9 DRM-free tracks for download.

Where the innovation comes in is with the additional options that the band is offering. For an additional $5 spot, the band will let you download all 36 tracks in a variety of audio formats. Kick in $10 and you get all 36 tracks to download, plus the two disc set. If you are a real NIN fan, spend $300 and you get a super package that includes an LP version of the album that is autographed by Trent Reznor.

The download package comes as a ZIP file that contains the tracks plus some additional content in PDF format. It is a cool concept for NIN to give this a try, but it will be interesting to see how many people simply download the free tracks and opt not to spend any money.

For this to be successful, NIN has to be counting on the fact that most people are willing to spend either $5 to download the entire set of tracks from the album, or $10 to download the entire album and get the discs, as well. Our hats off to NIN for a good concept that is priced right. We hope that users can see the merits of tossing $5 toward this cause.